One Foot in Front of the Other
by Lilah Neal
Summary: In a post Naraku world, Kagome and Kouga take a walk together. Is it love, or farewell? [one shot, complete] previously titled Long Walk Through a Fairy Tale


This humble one-shot is based on two things. Firstly, a 3xR fic I read years ago, and utterly adored, and secondly, on the story that inspired _that_ fic, Kurt Vonnegut's sublimely wonderful and poignant _Long Walk to Forever._

DISCLAIMER: _Inuyasha Sengoku o-Togi Zoushi_ and all related characters and images are the property of Takahashi Rumiko, Shogakukan and VIZ, LLC, copyright 2005, all rights reserved.

I just mess with them, for fun not profit.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

One Foot in Front of the Other

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

She had met him five years ago, when she was still a lost little mortal miko, at the edge of a village, near a river and a forest and a pack of wolves, within sight of the mountains he called home.

Now she was twenty and immortal, and he was she didn't know how old, and they had not seen each other in nearly a year. There had been fear and resentment at first, on her part, then respect and trust, and warm, caring concern, and he had always said she was his, but there had never been what she considered real love.

His name was Kouga, the steel fang. Her name was Higurashi Kagome, the girl who overcame time.

It was late fall, the afternoon Kouga came to Kaede-obaa-sama's hut.

Kagome was the one he had smelled within, the one who parted the bamboo screen to greet him. She held a fat, glossy magazine splashed with pictures of brides.

"Kouga-kun!"

She was surprised to see him, had imagined him far away, perhaps back among his pack now that Naraku was dead.

"Come for a walk with me, Kagome."

He said. He was a confident man, had to be, in order to survive, to lead his pack, to help them survive, but there was a secret shyness in him that only Kagome saw. He tried to hide it by speaking carelessly, as though neither his words nor the one who received them mattered – as though he had stepped into the world from somewhere better, brighter, more real, and didn't care a whit for anything he'd found here. Even when she knew that wasn't true, when she caught that flicker of white desperation in his too-blue eyes, he nevertheless clung to that manner of speech.

"A walk?"

Asked Kagome.

"One foot in front of the other," replied Kouga, "through fields, over mountains---"

"I had no idea you were near the village," she said.

"Just happened to be in the neighborhood," he replied.

"Still rounding up the other wolf demon tribes?" she asked.

"Aa."

He had found most of them, lead them to the eastern dens, months ago. His furs were dusty. His ponytail was disheveled. There were spurs in his tail. He held out a tanned hand for the magazine.

"Let's see the pretty book," he said.

She gave it to him.

"I'm getting married, Kouga-kun."

"Aa. I know."

"Kouga-kun---"

"Let's go for a walk."

"I have so much to do, Kouga-kun," she replied. "We---the wedding is next week."

"If we go for a walk," he offered with a teasing smirk, "it will make you rosy. You'll be a rosy bride, Kagome, like this one..." He flipped through the magazine, through the glossy pictures. "And this one, and this one," he said, showing her rosy brides.

Kagome turned rosy, thinking about being a rosy bride.

"That'll be my present to Inukkoro," continued Kouga. "By taking you for a walk, I'll be giving mutt face a rosy bride."

"You knew?"

"Ran into the houshi. Seems his taijiya is expecting twins."

"Hai," she replied. After a moment, she tried again.

"You should give Inuyasha a chance."

"Maybe."

"Will---will you come to the wedding, Kouga-kun?" she asked.

"That I doubt."

"Is it...is it because I'm marrying Inuyasha?"

"It's got nothing to do with Inuyasha."

He replied. He was staring at a two-page ad for bone china.

"Oh?" She asked, fear and hope and worry flooding her too-bright eyes.

"The Elders arranged for me to take a mate. I was supposed to go get her."

"Oh, Kouga-kun! You're going, aren't you?"

"Of course I'm not," he told her, still looking at the magazine.

"But why, Kouga-kun? The Elders, they---you told me that if you disobeyed them that they might--you're not listening to me, are you?"

"I had to find out what your china pattern is. I'm told that's important to human girls," he explained. "So what is it? Luxembourg? Blue Colonel?" he asked, reading some of the names listed in the magazine. "Old Imari? Singapore?" He looked up, flashed her a smile. "I intend to give you and dog breath a serving dish."

"Kouga-kun, onegai, tell me the truth," she begged.

"I want us to go for a walk."

She wrung her hands in adorable anguish.

"Oh, Kouga-kun! You're joking about the Elders!"

Kouga quirked an eyebrow at her, and her heart dropped into her stomach.

"Where---where are you supposed to be?" she asked.

"North."

"Oh kami-sama---where the Elders themselves live?"

"Aa. I'm supposed to mate one of their granddaughters, actually."

"How long have you been..._missing?_"

He shrugged, causing his hair to shift against his shoulders.

"Three days."

"Does anyone else know?"

"I didn't come to see anyone else."

"Kouga-kun---"

"I came to see you."

Her brow wrinkled gently, as if she knew the answer to the question she was about to ask and had to ask it anyway, and was pained by what she would soon hear.

"Why?"

"Because I love you," he replied easily. "Now how about that walk?" he asked again. "One foot in front of the other, through fields, over mountains---"

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

They were walking now, under green trees and over brown leaves. Kagome was frustrated and confused, on the verge of tears.

"Kouga-kun," she said hotly, "This is insane!"

"How so?" asked Kouga.

"What a crazy thing to do, to show up here, _now,_ and tell me that you love me!" She blew out an angry breath, fluttered her bangs. "You were always calling me 'your woman,' but you never said anything about _that_ before."

She stopped walking.

"Let's keep walking."

"Iie. This far and no farther. I shouldn't have gone anywhere with you in the first place!"

"But you did."

"To get you out of the village!" she exclaimed. "If someone had seen you with me, and heard you talking like that, a week before the wedding---"

"What would they think?"

"That you had lost your mind," she stated flatly.

"Why?" he asked.

Kagome took a deep breath, made a little speech.

"Allow me to say that I'm deeply honored by this mad thing you've done," she said. "I can't believe that you've really defied the Elders, but maybe you did. I can't believe you really love me, but maybe you do. I---"

"I do."

"Well I'm flattered and touched and honored," Kagome babbled, "and I'm..._fond_ of you, as a friend, so very fond, but---it's too late."

She took a step back, away from him and the forest, towards the village and her wedding.

"You---you've never kissed me---never even _tried_ to---"

She held her hands out in front of her, waved them a bit frantically.

"And I don't mean that you should try now. I just---this is the last thing I expected and I don't know how I'm supposed to react."

"Just walk," he offered. "Enjoy yourself."

They started walking again.

"How did you think I'd respond to this?"

"How would I know what you'd do? I've never done anything like this before."

"Did you expect me to fling myself at you?"

"Maybe."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"I'm not disappointed," he told her. "I wasn't figuring you'd do that. And this is nice, just walking."

Kagome stopped again, eyes on the brown leaf floor.

"You know what happens next?"

"Iie."

"We say goodbye," she replied. "We say goodbye and part as friends," she explained. "That's what happens next."

Kouga shrugged.

"All right," he said. "Goodbye, Kagome. Remember me from time to time. Remember how much I loved you."

Without warning, without even wanting to, Kagome burst into tears. She turned her head and spun away from him, to face the expanse of pristine forest rising out of the mist ahead.

"Why are you crying?"

"Because I'm so mad I could---Ooo! I could purify you!" she snapped, fists clenching and unclenching at her sides. "You had _no_ right whatsoever---"

"I had to know," he interrupted.

"If I'd loved you," she told him quietly, "I would've let you know before now."

"You would've?" he asked, incredulous and teasing.

"Hai."

She faced him, looked up into his too-blue eyes with clouded grey-blue ones, met his smooth tan face with a splotchy, tear-stained one.

"You would've known."

"How?"

"You would've seen it," she answered simply. "Girls aren't very good at hiding it."

Kouga looked closely at Kagome's face, at the tears in her too-bright eyes and on her too-soft cheeks, at the way she nibbled her too-pink lip as he looked at her, and Kagome realized, much to her chagrin, that what she had said was true. Girls _weren't_ very good at hiding love. In fact, Kouga was seeing love _now._ So he did what any wolf would have done. He kissed her. Hard.

"You're impossible!" she told him, after he had let her go.

"Am I?" asked Kouga.

"You really shouldn't have done that."

"You didn't like it?"

If he was hurt by the idea, he didn't show it. Kagome seethed with impotent rage, even as her cheeks burned.

"Well what did you expect?" she demanded, "Wild, unbridled passion?"

"Like I said before," he replied with an easy smile, "I have no idea what's going to happen next."

"We say good-bye," she said, though not with as much finality as she had intended.

He frowned just a whisker, narrowed his eyes with mild displeasure.

"All right."

She felt the need to give him another speech.

"I'm not sorry we kissed," she told him. "It was sweet and---we _should_ have kissed, really, I mean we're---we've been so close. I'll always remember you, Kouga-kun, and I hope you find happiness."

"You, too."

"Arigatou, Kouga-kun."

"Fifty years."

"Naa?"

"Fifty years outside the clan," he explained, "That's what one kiss could cost me. At the very least."

"Oh---oh Kouga-kun! I---I'm so sorry," she gasped, adding, "Though I didn't _ask_ you to disobey the Elders and come here."

"I know."

"And you certainly don't deserve a reward for being so...so...incredibly reckless and _foolish_ and---"

"Must be nice to be stable and dependable and responsible," he interrupted, some of his old arrogance returning as he asked, "Is Inuyasha those things?"

"He could be..."

_Eventually, maybe._

She realized then that they had started walking again, the farewell forgotten.

"So you really love him?" asked Kouga.

"Of all the---Of course I love him! I've loved him since---"

Kagome exhaled slowly and said more calmly,

"I wouldn't be marrying Inuyasha if I didn't love him."

"What's good about him?" asked Kouga, with an almost childlike resentment that was more than Kagome could take.

"Sweet, merciful Buddha!" she cried, stopping again. "Do you have any idea how much of a jerk you're being? Inuyasha has many, many, many good points! I'll be the first to admit that there are many, many, many things _wrong_ with him as well, but _none_ of that concerns _you_. I love Inuyasha, I have always loved Inuyasha, and I am _not_ going to argue with you about this, or anything else for that matter!"

"Gomen ne, Kagome."

"Honestly, Kouga-kun, you---"

And then he kissed her again, only this time he kissed her because she wanted him to.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

Now they were in an orchard, beyond the well and the Goshinboku, and everything else Kagome recognized.

"How'd we get so far from the village?"

"One foot in front of the other, through fields, over mountains," offered Kouga.

"They add up, don't they? All the steps," she remarked.

Chimes sounded in the large shrine nearby.

"It's time for prayers." Kagome said absently.

"Aa, time for prayers." Kouga agreed.

She stifled a dainty yawn behind her hand, feeling suddenly warm and drowsy and lazy.

"I should get back now."

"You have to say goodbye first." Kouga reminded her.

"Every time I try," Kagome said, "I wind up getting kissed."

Kouga slid down the trunk of a plum tree to the grass.

"Sit."

"Iie."

"I won't touch you."

"I don't believe you."

She chose a tree some twenty feet from him, even though they both knew even twenty miles wouldn't keep him away, and felt her eyelids grow heavy.

"Dream of Inukkoro."

"Eh?"

"Dream of your wonderful husband-to-be," he said.

"I will!"

She said defiantly, even though she wasn't seeing silver, red and gold right then. She squeezed her eyes shut, scrunched her nose and lips and brow into a pucker and concentrated hard, and caught glimpses of her husband-to-be.

Kouga yawned, fangs glinting in the golden light, and let his eyes drift closed.

A light wind was rustling through the branches, and Kagome nearly fell asleep. When she opened her eyes she saw that Kouga was asleep and snoring softly. She let him sleep on, and while he slept she adored him with all her heart.

When she was fifteen, he _hadn't_ been her type. He had been too confident, too available, too _honest. _The kind of truth he held in those too-blue eyes, in that arrogant swagger, in that powerful body and open heart had been too dangerous for one so young and inexperienced. So she pushed him away just enough to keep him within reach.

Now she wasn't sure if she _had_ a type, couldn't honestly say that she didn't find the danger Kouga still presented as worth the risk. And she wondered how much longer she could push him away before he was out of reach.

The shadows of the forest stretched and yawned, and dueled the shafts of light for superiority. The chimes sounded in the large shrine again.

_"Caw, caw, caw," _went a crow.

Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled. Kagome came out from under her tree to kneel beside Kouga.

"Kouga-kun?"

He cracked an eye, darkened to cool, celestial blue by sleep, and she said simply,

"It's late."

"Komban wa, Kagome."

"Komban wa, Kouga-kun."

"I love you."

"I know."

"Too late," he said.

"Too late," she sighed.

He stood, stretched with languid, predatory grace.

"That was a nice walk."

"I thought so," she agreed.

"Part here?" he asked.

"Mmm," she agreed. "What will you do?"

"Go North, hope the Elders only decide to banish me," he said.

"Good luck," she said.

"Marry me, Kagome?"

"Iie."

He flashed her that same cocky grin, stared at her with those same too-blue eyes a moment longer then walked away.

Kagome watched him go, watched him get ever further from her, become ever more a part of the shadows and the trees and the wild unknown that lay beyond and knew that if he stopped, if he turned now and called for her, she would run to him.

And Kouga did stop. He did turn and call for her.

"Kagome."

And she did run to him. This time she _did_ fling herself at him, choking back tears and broken bits of almost words. She hugged herself to him, buried her nose in the fur at his shoulder, smiled at the swish of his tail, trembled at the tight press of his arms against her back, whimpered at the brush of first his nose then his lips over her temple.

_Love him. _

Yes, she did. She did love him. And she could feel in the contented rumble in his chest, in the gentled caress of his strong hands, could see in the light of his too-blue eyes that he loved her.

There was nothing else left to be said.

°•Owari•°


End file.
